About the Chin Rest of the Violin & Its Functions

Video Transcript

" Hi! I’m David Kaynor for expertvillage.com. I’m talking about chin rests. Here’s a chin rest a violin chin rest: this is the area the chin cup and these are turn buckles, basically you turn them in one direction and this clamp loosen, turn them in the other direction and the clamp tightens. There are a number of different styles of chin rest, some of them clamp on the base side of the violin, others like this one which I prefer clamp over the tail piece, and if you can imagine the tail piece being in place here, in fact I can put it in place if the tail piece is in place and the chin rest clamps over it. And then there are some special little tools you can use for tightening the chin rest, you can make a tool out of a paper clip or a little nail, it’s important to try to not scratch the ribs when you’re tightening the little turn buckles. Then the chin rest clamps to the fiddle hopefully tight enough to remain stable, but not so tight as to do damage to the instrument itself. And it becomes a very comfortable support, one hopes it becomes a very comfortable support. The reason why I prefer, one reason I prefer the over the tail piece chin rest is that here we have the end block of the fiddle, which is a piece of carved spruce and the grain runs vertically, this means that it’s relatively strong it’s relatively resistant to the down pressure the squeezing or clamping pressure of a chin rest. I feel that it’s safer than having a chin rest clamp over on the side of the instrument where on the lining appears to make the rib a little thicker, but in fact the rib is actually a very thin piece of maple. Most of today’s fiddle players, I think most violin players are accustomed to using a chin rest. And the idea of a chin rest is to make a comfortable orientation of the violin between the chin, the shoulder or shoulder blade and the hand. When combined, when comfortable chin rest is combined with a comfortable shoulder rest, holding the violin securely can be very comfortable and involve very little effort."